This Article was written for my Golden Valley Patch Blog on August 8th, 2011.
By the time you read this, I hope that you have avoided the recent stock market “panic.” In Minnesota, in August, with or without kids in tow, most Minnesotans are so busy that they don’t realize the full extent of another late summer stock market decline.
Like most company retirement plan participants, you probably have not gone online and logged into your company 401(k) account in the last 10 days. If you did not have time to seek out the shocking news, good for you! Now, it is too late to panic anyway.
I began writing about having a “game plan” in mid-July. At that time you needed to aggressively understand and manage each and every mutual fund you owned in your company 401(k) retirement plan account.
Now, you surely own a mutual fund that is going down in value at a faster rate than the overall stock market benchmarks. You are probably losing your company retirement plan account principal at the same rate as an ice cream cone melting away on a sunny August afternoon.
Don’t sit back and “buy-and-hold” your way to another round of all-time record company retirement plan losses for the second time in the last three years. For that reason, “Minnesota Nice” has no place in your company 401(k) plan investment strategy going forward.
Sell the mutual funds that you currently own that got your company retirement plan account into trouble in the first place. Next, place the sale proceeds into the money market option in your company retirement plan menu.
Then wait until the stock market finds a meaningful bottom, and begins to work its way back up. At that time, buy the better mutual fund options available to you in your company retirement plan menu. There are better mutual funds to own if you look for them.
Use this stock market decline to take the meaningful investment management steps now in order to improve the long-term investment performance in your company 401(k) retirement plan account.
Ric Lager
Lager & Company, Inc.
